Update for the Week of September 24, 2021

(Covenant’s playtest rules are out! Download a copy now and tell us what you think! If you like what you see, think about becoming a patron!)

Featured Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

We’re starting our playtest this week! Find out more below the fold.

Here’s what we want to talk about this week:

• Our first playtesting session tomorrow!
• The Archimedean Confederation
• The game mechanic of the week, banking advantages
• How to become a playtester

PLAYTESTING

We finally have three playtesters for Covenant! That’s the minimum that we need to start playtesting the game.

We had to drop a requirement that they could only make human characters to get that third playtester. We originally put in that requirement to reduce the game’s complexity during playtesting, so the actual playtest is going to be a little more complicated than we anticipated, with two nonhuman PC’s.

We’ll be introducing the characters on Saturday. That’s tomorrow. We’ll let you know how it went next week!

ARCHIMEDEAN CONFEDERATION

Still transcribing our notes. The Archimedean Confederation’s index card file is two inches high and growing.

Here’s the notes that we transcribed this week:

• The company-state’s internal culture, which is like modern corporate culture on steroids
• The contractor that runs the company-states’ nightmarish justice system
• The social credit system used by the company-states
• The Winnowing, when the indigenous states destroyed a number of company-states and turned the surviving ones into the armed camps that they are
• The pop culture that the company-states sell outside the Archimedean Confederation, which is a lot like K-pop in how it exploits its talent
• The foreign policy aims of the company-states and indigenous states

We’ll release Covenant’s domain summaries to the public when we finish all of them. However, if you become a patron, then we’ll send each one to you as we finish it!

GAME MECHANIC OF THE WEEK: BANKING ADVANTAGES

If you accomplish one action easily, then it means that you can devote more time and resources to other actions. Your character can do that in Covenant by banking advantages.

To review, advantages are anything that helps your character make a bid, while disadvantages are anything that hinders xir. If xi has more advantages than disadvantages on a bid, then the cost in discipline to make the bid is halved – that is, it costs 1 discipline to increase the bid by 2 instead of 1.

Therefore, you want as many advantages on a bid as possible.

Your character can bank 1 advantage from each successful bid that xi makes (as long as that advantage has an advantage). You can then spend your character’s banked advantages to give xir advantages on future bids. Those banked advantages disappear at the start of your next turn, though, so use them while you have them.

BECOMING A PLAYTESTER

Have you downloaded Covenant’s playtest rules yet? Did we mention that they’re free? If not, do it now! They’re free! All we ask is that you tell us what you think about them. You can send your feedback in two ways:

• Email us at radiofreecovenant@gmail.com
• Join our Discord server

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That’s about it for now. Talk to you next Friday!